A few days ago I got a call from a lawyer who has ties with Sea World. Not direct ties but close enough to be concerned.

So the conversation goes like this…
Lawyer: “Are you aware of what happened yesterday at Sea World?”
Me: “Yup. Read about it.”
Lawyer: “I want to suggest that they call you because this is an incident that could blow into a crisis. They need Channel Signal to monitor this.”   Me: “Thanks. We would love to help. Based on a little searching around it looks like its heading into crisis now.”

Well, we didn’t get the call, and the message was, thanks we have it covered.
Good for them. Hope it goes well.

It’s not.
All major news outlets carried it. Predictable. Major animal rights sites were on the offensive. Predictable. And Sea World and animal entertainment advocates were on the defensive. Predictable.

And here are the unanswered questions which brought heat to the debate:

1. Why was this whale in question (Tilikam) involved in the shows after killing other people?
2. Is the use of predators for entertainment just a game of chance?
3. Why did the shows resume so quickly.
4. And are these predators merely prisoners for fun and profit?

Pick your side and pull out your firearm.

CNN sponsored a raging screaming match between an orca trainer and an avid environmentalist. Other news talk shows followed. Actors and actresses got involved. PETA has set up a Free Willy Facebook Site and already has over 6,000 followers.

Twitter, Facebook, and the blogsphere lit up about the poor handling of the situation.

And standing in the middle of this traditional and social media storm is Sea World.

A couple of things to remember here.

When an incident blows into a crisis, immediately start monitoring…on both sides of the issue.
1. Learn what is critical to answer and answer those questions…rapidly.
2. Address and even attack false statements rapidly.
3. And have people available 24/7 for all questions from all quarters.
4. And don’t stop listening, and responding until the crisis is past…well past.
5. And no attitude.

Now, I realize that, according to reports, the Sea World team is tight and losing a trainer to another family member (Tilikam) has to be devastating.

But, that is why you bring in a communications team that knows what they are doing. To protect the Sea World team. Provide guidance. Get to the facts. And appoint an authentic Sea World spokesperson.

And some of these people on the communication team should have news training because first and foremost this is a news story. The facts…that’s what reporters want. And if they smell that facts are being withheld, then they will dig harder and look for angles.

And reporters will then report those “angles” and that information will be picked up by the blogs. And mis-information becomes fact.

Sea World finds its very business model now being questioned. Will parents risk a show knowing that something terrible could happen? Will people  find it detestable that these carnivores are kept in tanks for life, when in the wild they travel over 100 miles a day in open ocean?  And is this just about money, since the show opened 3 days after the tradegy?

Free Willy has taken on a whole new meaning for Sea World.

And some of this could have been avoided with a communication strategy laid out in advance. And a new key to that strategy is 24/7 monitoring of the crisis so that opinions are quickly uncovered, and then covered with facts.

Before Social Media, you could count on a crisis having a limited shelf-life. After all, the media had new things to cover and its attention was taken elsewhere.

With Social Media, every crisis has a long tail. So, Sea World and its handlers will be dealing with blogs, tweets, YouTube, and Flickr for the forseeable future. And with every new fact about the story will be thousands of opinions.

“We’ve got it covered.”

Clearly, Sea World underestimated “it”.

And what it would take to “cover” it.

An article by Channel Signal appeared in SNEWS a couple of days ago. It has to do with wolf-killing derbies held in Idaho, and is getting circulated. The piece also addresses UVEX and how it used social media to outflank the International Olympic Committee.

I want to make it easy for you to see Channel Signal columns from SNEWS. So, go to this link and you can view the story, as well as other SNEWS stories.

https://www.snewsnet.com/SNEWSFreebie/ChannelSignalFriend.html

Thanks.

eMarketer reports that, “While Q3 2009 data showed e-mail on top for content-sharing, February 2010 information from social optimization platform Gigya points to Facebook as the Web’s top social sharing hub.”

Facebook continues to grow because users believe that the content is richer due to photos, video, and articles, all  being easily shared.

It is also more personal. Protected. And intuitive.

As for Twitter? The noise continues. I use it, but am frustrated, at times, with the amount of nonsense on it.

“What a beautiful sunrise!”

“Forgot how much I liked my banana nut muffin!”

“Getting ready for a jog. Ugh!”

I realize that, obviously, many people are interested in this slice of lifestyle. Just not me.

I use and like Twitter when interesting articles are posted. Or my attention is brought to a new hot topic.

However, it looks like many agree, that Facebook is less noise and more of the content that interests the “fans”.

I sometimes feel like I am completely out of touch with our lawmakers, and that I may now be a fringe member of society.

Major issues are at work effecting the outdoor recreational industry. And I feel helpless.

Two points:
1. Today, an American citizen can carry a firearm into our national parks and wildlife refuges. Now, this bill was passed by a Congress who sits atop the most violent society in the world.

2. The Utah legislature just passed a resolution stating that the state of Utah does not believe in global warming. It believes initiatives to combat global warming will hurt the Utah economy.

So, now, when an American wants to tote a gun into our national parks, a place of sanctuary for the populace, he or she can.

There are over 600 animals listed as endangered in the United States alone.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Report

The FBI reports there are over 200 million guns in the United States and that number is rising.

The U.S. Department of Justice also reports:

Among those ages 15 to 24, the U.S. firearm homicide rate is 5 times higher than in neighboring Canada and 30 times higher than in Japan, and the firearm homicide rate for the 15- to 24-year-old age group increased 158 percent during the 10-year period from 1984 to 1993.  A teenager in the United States today is more likely to die of a gunshot wound than from all the “natural” causes of death combined.

And as for the adults, the same report says that in 1996, the last year all of this was measured, over 34,000 people died from gunshot wounds.

Firearm injuries are the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. In addition, for every fatal shooting, there are roughly three nonfatal shootings.

And now we turn us lose in the National Parks and the Wildlife Sanctuaries? Our meager supply of wildlife officers will now be forced to be law enforcement officers. And our parks will become a sanctuary all right, for felons and others running from the law. And how will they eat?

As far as global warming is concerned…Congress asked influential scientists to write a report. They did, and all concurred. Here is the report.

Global warming in the last 2,000 years.

And that reports says that global warming is a fact. A fact.

Now, anti-global warming bloggers have taken to the offense. Have they produced anything close to this document?  No.  Apparently, they just look out their window and see that it is snowing in Virginia and that is sufficient evidence for their belief.

When did we stop believing science? Here is the Utah legislature in action.

Utah Legislative Action

So, it looks like we ignore the facts. Ignore gun violence. Ignore the protection of the wild things. Ignore global warming.

And it does seem that the conservative portion of America is employing the best lobbyists. And they seem to control both the federal and state legislatures.

And on this Sunday morning, I feel alone. I grew up being taught that every American has a voice. And it seems the causes I believe in have a lot of voices behind them. But our voices seem to be drowned out by the sound of money being poured into the pockets of politicians.

Money talks. And in our country, with a booming voice.

Well, it happened again. And it will happen again until brands finally understand  they  have to respond quickly and effectively to an incident so that it does not become a crisis.

Incident= Kevin Smith, the film director and avid twitter user, was forced off a Southwest Airlines flight because he is too heavy.

Evolved into an Issue: Smith used his twitter account (1.6 million followers) to rage against the airlines’s handling of the incident.

Evolved into a Crisis: Smith rallied many large people to the cause. Many others agreed with Southwest that some people are too large to fly in just one seat. The debate rages, and Southwest is in the middle of it.

Result: Southwest is now spending major resources on crisis control about obesity, and not spending that money on operating an airline. The Board of Directors must be thrilled.

It all started with a tweet on Twitter.

Dear @SouthwestAir  from @ThatKevinSmith— “I know I’m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?”

And the pic he took just before being asked to leave the plane.

Photo just before he got off the plane.

Here’s the response from the company. Corporate, logical, and with no humanity in the voice.

“Mr. Smith originally purchased two Southwest seats on a flight from Oakland to Burbank – as he’s been known to do when traveling on Southwest. He decided to change his plans and board an earlier flight to Burbank, which technically means flying standby.

“As you may know, airlines are not able to clear standby passengers until all Customers are boarded. When the time came to board Mr. Smith, we had only a single seat available for him to occupy.

“Our pilots are responsible for the Safety and comfort of all Customers on the aircraft and therefore, made the determination that Mr. Smith needed more than one seat to complete his flight.

“Our Employees explained why the decision was made, accommodated Mr. Smith on a later flight, and issued him a $100 Southwest travel voucher for his inconvenience.”

48 hours later came this:

Southwest Airlines Blog Response by Linda Rutherford, VP of Communications

Better, but too late. Now, go here.

Kevin Smith on Twitter

As mentioned, the issue has exploded.  Now, my question is…where was the Southwest CEO, Gary Kelly,  in all of this? When an incident threatens to become an issue the leader of the company has to become the spokesperson. And that person has to act quickly and decisively to put the issue to rest. Otherwise, the issue becomes a crisis.

In realtime social media 48 hours is too long.

And Kevin Smith has over a million followers on Twitter. Should that make a difference? Yes. Why? Because he is talking to 1.5 million people and what he says matters. Now, yes, he is a movie director and has a following…and that is the point. When you have that large of following, people are interested in what you have to say.

Oh, and by the way, about 12 hours ago a local news station reported that Southwest booted another person off a flight for being too fat.

Another who is Too Fat to Fly

You see the crisis is now news, and has taken a life of its own.

And another man has now been removed from an Air Canada flight because he smelled. And guess what airline was also mentioned?

Too Smelly to Fly

A ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

AND

Recently I was in a good conversation and the subject came up of “and”, in this context… the problem that many companies have in new media is that they believe this is an and…meaning new media adds to their workload.

Middle manager: “You mean I have to do my job…and this new media thing?”

There is no and. New media is a push-pull marketing strategy that takes the place of other advertising, marketing and public relations initiatives. Meaning you can push messaging into the new media space, and pull positive impressions by engaging with consumers. You can cut down your print advertising. Cut down your press releases. Cut down your number of events.

And then you can invest some of that money in publishing interesting content into your distribution channels. You can work on attracting tweeters and bloggers with that content and then bring your messages into the marketplace with many different voices. You can retrieve real-time market-research when consumers address your products, customer service, or marketing initiatives.

And yes, it will cost money. But not as much money as you were investing in simply a push marketing strategy.

There is no and when it comes to new media. And if brands think there is…then those brands are already behind. Consumers want to talk with real people in a company. And if you hide behind a strategy that force-feeds messaging to consumers and ignore their questions, then consumers will only ramp up the volume.

Consumers now publish. Brands should not fight it. They should publish content. Engage. And convert.

And if companies think new media is an add-on, they are ignoring the thousands of people reading about the brand and responding to the product everyday.

New Media is not an add-on.

It is called change.

On the heels of the Outdoor Retailers Show and all of the new  media that was happening around the event, my friend Carson Stanwood emailed me a very timely post from Seth Godin. He writes about the three types of people new media Influencers face in all industries. Again, this is applicable as Influencers, public relations experts and new media companies begin the dialogue about entering into unknown waters.

Here is Seth’s post.

Frightened, clueless or uninformed?

In the face of significant change and opportunity, people are often one of the three. If you’re going to be of assistance, it helps to know which one.

Uninformed people need information and insight in order to figure out what to do next. They are approaching the problem with optimism and calm, but they need to be taught. Uninformed is not a pejorative term, it’s a temporary state.

Clueless people don’t know what to do and they don’t know that they don’t know what to do. They don’t know the right questions to ask. Giving them instructions is insufficient. First, they need to be sold on what the platform even looks like.

And frightened people will resist any help you can give them, and they will blame you for the stress the change is causing. Scared people like to shoot the messenger. Duck.

The worst kind of frightened person is one with power. Someone in a mob of other frightened people, someone with a gun, someone who is the CEO. When confronted with a scared CEO, time to run. Before someone can change, they have to learn, and before they learn, they have to cease being scared.

One reason so many big ideas come from small organizations is that there is far less fear of change at the top. One mistake board members and shareholders make is that they reward the scared but hyper-confident CEO, instead of calling him on the carpet as he rages at change.

When I first encountered surfing, I was scared of it. It looks cool, but an old guy like me can get hurt. A patient instructor allayed my fears until I was willing to get started. When you first start out, the things you think are important are actually irrelevant, and it’s the stuff you don’t know is important that gets you thrown into the ocean. Finally, and only then, was I smart enough to actually learn.

I’m bad at surfing now, but at least I know why.

Comfort the frightened, coach the clueless and teach the uninformed.

Seth Godin\’s Blog

Excellent advice. Now, let all of us in the outdoor recreation new media biz get to work. Our goal should be to help brands and retailers engage with consumers. Growth will be the result.

By Channel Signal Analysts James Mills, David Sweeney and Paul Kirwin

At the 2010 Outdoor Retailer Winter Market boosters of specialty products and services had a unique opportunity to participate in a conversation about the show, brands and events. Broadcast over the #ORWinter Twitter feed hosted and monitored by Channel Signal, even outdoor professionals who couldn’t attend the event were able to login and share the flow of information
“From my perspective, it was great to be able to participate with OR, without being there,” said William Roth (@williamroth), social network coordinator of the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, Wyoming. “I liked seeing twitpics with new/conceptual products. I was able to learn about #guerillapanel and build my outdoor industry base of twitter users. It also made me realize just how much I need to be attending OR in the summer.”
By simply including #ORWinter in their entries of 140 characters or less Twitter users shared photographs, videos and abbreviated links to blog web sites. Anyone on the planet with Internet access could see and follow the comment stream in real-time throughout the four-day event, including the on-snow demo. And on the show floor, exhibitors and key industry influencers were able to use the power of social media to generate excitement and drive traffic to their booths.

Those brands that hosted exciting industry events generated the most traffic. Teva’s live music party on the 2nd night of the show raised the conversation quotient among Tweeters with large followings, posting 29,250 social media impressions at the show. For each Tweeter who shared information about Teva, an equal number of their total followers got the word. Keen Footwear also had an impressive showing with 24,241 impressions during the show. In-booth promotions to benefit Haitian earthquake relief as well as several videos posted to YouTube were likely contributors to Keen’s success. The brand encouraged its fans to become engaged throughout OR and for a few days afterward
“We wanted to keep it simple and authentic so that people could have real-time interaction with our brand, “said Keen spokesman Chris Enlow. “ We wanted to come up with creative ways to reach our fans and not just the people at the show. If we just focused on ‘Orwinter’, the hash tag, we would have missed out on an opportunity to build our community.”

But it wasn’t just the big brands that did well in the social media rankings. The company Naturally Bamboo was ranked 4th with 18,754 impressions. Owner and exhibitor April Femrite aggressively used the #ORWinter channel to talk up her business and she enlisted the help of others. For example this message was posted by leading outdoor industry social media influencer Sara Lingafelter AKA @theclimbergirl: “Wardrobe change thanks to @naturallybamboo. This dress is so incredibly comfy, I feel like I’m running around naked. #orwinter”  Original messages like this one about @naturallybamboo were shared repeatedly across the Internet. It’s likely that a conversation about a naked @theclimbergirl was passed around peer to peer with more than a few chuckles. And with each re-tweet was also sent and received a message about the comfort of a dress made by Naturally Bamboo. “I hope this proves to be a social media success story,” said Femrite. “I don’t have a huge marketing budget. All I have is social media, Facebook and Twitter, to build buzz and bring my brand to the attention of my customers.”

Two of the most talked about exhibitors weren’t brands but non-profit organizations, 1% For The Planet and The Conservation Alliance. With the help of key influencers who support these groups the issues of wildlife conservation and environmental conservation became top-of-mind.

“Social media makes the connection between brands, causes and adventurers clearer than ever before,” said Emily Nuchols, an industry influencer and a principle at Under Solen Media. “It’s not about who gets the most action on Twitter, it’s about who uses their social media to take action on things that matter. We believe in the power of social media to make positive change, and we believe in people who are passionate about their causes — be they businesses, advocates or adventurers.”
Nuchols posted information about the groups bi-annual breakfast meeting and spread the word on several promotional fundraising events held on the Conservation Alliance’s behalf at the booths of many different exhibitors.

On the other side of the issue, Malcolm Daly, founder of the climbing equipment company Trango has been attending OR since the 70’s and is a self-described skeptic. “I have high hopes but low expectations for the #ORWinter channel,” he said in a blog post a week before the show. “It’s already inundated with 140 character versions of the 40 year old press release, posted (tweeted) up by people and companies who don’t get it. Why would I bother to take notice of those if I never even bothered to take notice of them before?”
To Daly’s point if users of social media employ traditional techniques of one-way communications to connect with their audience very little of the conversation will change. But those brands and individuals who actively engage in a dialog, sharing and responding to pertinent and compelling information, can indeed use networks like the #ORWinter feed to their benefit.

Many will likely ask: “Was the #ORWinter experiment a success?” That’s like asking if a conversation at a cocktail party was successful. The more pertinent questions are: Was the discussion lively and informative? Did you discover anything new? Did you come away with the knowledge that you were not only heard but also listened to? Would you engage in this kind of conversation in the future?
Social media neither succeeds nor fails, it simply is. In the free exchange of ideas one will only get out of a conversation as much as he or she is prepared to put into it. Those who created meaningful content, those who responded directly to the questions or comments of others and those who shared what they discovered with the conversation at large will inevitably be the most successful users of social media.

Below are the top tens in both Brands and Influencers.

Note: Possible impressions= the number of  mentions of that brand by unique users (X)  their followers. This number excludes retweets, ( people who were passing a tweet along).

Top Ten Brands                                                           Impressions

@TevaMeansNature (Teva)                                                        29,250

@keen_shoes ( Keen Footwear)                                               25,241

@conservationall (The Conservation Alliance)                   21, 252

@naturallybamboo (Naturally Bamboo)                               18,754

@DfaDogs (D-fa Dogs)                                                                9,981

@hardwear (Mountain Hardwear)                                           9,633

@1PercentFTP (1% For The Planet)                                         7,276

@haikubags (Haiku)                                                                    6,780

@montrail (Montrail)                                                                   4,917

@chacousa (Chaco)                                                                      4,045

Total generated by the Top Ten                                             118,375

Top Ten Influencers                   Mentions                           Followers

@theclimbergirl                                 15                                  3,370
@PembaServes                                   12                                  1,123
@Eliz_Castro                                      11                                  1,662
@undersolen                                       10                                     461
@wude72                                             10                                11,181
@saralingafelter                                 9                                      549
@canoelover                                        9                                       461
@RepGirl                                              8                                       215
@TheGearJunkie                               7                                    3,191
@highsteph                                         7                                    1,758

Total number of Followers                                                   23,971

The revolution inside the Outdoor Industry has started. It’s within the walls of the castle and started by the new media young people. We are still talking with ourselves, but the big difference now is that the public is listening, and in the early stages of responding.

To refresh, Channel Signal presented #orwinter as part of a twitter presentation on the floor of the Winter Outdoor Retailer Show. Along with the feed, we also presented the top 10 Brands being talked about and the top 10 Influencers who were the most active on #orwinter.

Channel Signal analysts David Sweeney and James Mills are sorting through the data. Some interesting patterns are emerging. First day of the show the Influencers completely took charge, tweeting and delivering as much personal and business information as possible. Second day, the socially media savvy brands caught on and were using #orwinter to drive traffic to their booths. Third day, it was a good mix of brands and influencers working with the communication channel to attract attention and deliver information to floor attendees and their followers in the public.

This is the first time that the public was able to get a glimpse of the OR Winter Show…in real time. And it appears from the videos that have been viewed, and the stats that we are seeing, that they liked it.

Again,this is just the beginning to building a communication pipe from the Show to the public. A pipe where products, marketing campaigns and  environmental causes can be delivered, and the public can react.

Awareness breeds demand. Awareness used to be created by broadcasting the message with the microphone. Now, it’s a two-way conversation. Of course, the real challenge will be…can we still use the microphone and now train ourselves to hear the response?

If so, our businesses will grow…because the public will be even more invested.

The Channel Signal Report on the twitter program will be out in just a few days.

All. Please go here to a video feed of Day 3. Channel Signal analysts David Sweeney and James Mills chime in on what is going on.

Please go here for Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3: Channel Signal Facebook Page

Thanks.